Ternary Logic
by fairbreeze
Summary: Earl tries to hate Carlos and fails miserably. Carlos honors a last request and falls in love not-so-instantly. Cecil finds a surprise waiting for him in a new home, and another surprise waiting in an old one. Earl wakes up in a compromising position.
1. Chapter 1

A/N: This fic as a whole contains explicit spoilers for "Eternal Scouts", "One Year Later" and, most importantly, **"Condos"**. It's also safe to presume it may contain minor spoilers for any episode up to current, though I think it's safe to say the whole of it likely takes place _prior_ to "Yellow Helicopters".

Also, although the last two chapters are not published at the time of this writing, the last chapter of this fic_ is_ explicit and so will not be posted here.

* * *

What Cecil didn't know was how well Earl knew Carlos.

He should have. Cecil seemed almost omnipotent at times, had seemed that way long before he had become Night Vale's Voice and it was only worse now that he had. He knew all kinds of things that happened all over town, things that were impossible to know, but he'd always seemed to have a strange blind spot for one particular boy-scout-turned-scoutmaster. So it wouldn't have surprised Earl at all if Cecil had never once seen him going about his day and it certainly didn't surprise him when his scouts got a mention on the radio and he didn't. But ever since _The Scientist_ had come into town, it seemed like Cecil's awareness was _constantly_ on him. Every broadcast had some little detail about him or his team of scientists and every broadcast, Earl wondered when Cecil was going to comment on the fact that Earl had been seen with them almost as much as with his scouts these days.

Not that Cecil needed to worry or anything, even if he was going to, which Earl was very well aware he was not. It's not like there was anything going on between them. There was never anything going on between Earl and _anyone_, as a matter of fact, a fact that Cecil was blissfully oblivious to, but that Earl was painfully aware of every day. But he_was_ around Carlos a lot, now, and he was surprised it didn't merit some kind of mention, even just in passing, particularly when Cecil would report on various stories that Earl knew he was there for and involved in without even a mention of him, as though he were just another one of the scientists.

See, Earl knew a lot about the town, and Carlos was constantly asking questions and getting into trouble, and he was a Scientist, not someone prepared to fight off the terrors of Night Vale. The man thought that you just _went to the Library_, just walked right in and got what you wanted. He thought the Librarians were there to _help_ you. He needed someone to look after him, before he died some kind of horrible death. Cecil would be sad if he died, after all, and Earl could protect him. He didn't like Carlos but he didn't want Cecil to be sad.

And at first, that's all it was. He should hate Carlos and, truth be told, he was determined not to like him, to protect him for Cecil but to make his contempt for him well known in the process. He was an Outsider and he wanted him to understand that the only reason this place hadn't chewed him up and spat him out was that Earl kept saving him, and that he was _only_ doing that because for _some_ reason his "best-friend" had fallen head over heels for him.

But then Carlos was actually _nice_. Carlos was kind to him from the beginning, openly, honestly _grateful_ to be rescued, eager to sit around and take notes on Earl's knowledge of Night Vale, its dangers and beauty both. He could sit around for _hours_ and let Earl talk about scouting and badges and bloodstone circles, taking notes and asking appropriately interested questions as though the things Earl was saying were _fascinating_. He _respected_ him in a way he was only used to getting from his troop. He listened to him, engaged and interested in precisely the way Cecil wasn't. It was everything he'd ever wanted in a friend, in something more than a friend, from _anyone_, and here it was from the one person in all of Night Vale he _wanted_ to hate.

For a while he hated him anyway, just to be contrary. He pretended to be polite while he seethed inside. He was viciously, dangerously jealous. He hung around him and the scientists just to see them fail and laughed privately when they did. The whole thing was awful and made him feel like an awful person and lasted a little more than a week. Carlos was misguided and entirely too much of a hero with entirely too little concept of the consequences, but he was intelligent and earnest and every bit as unfairly attractive as Cecil made him out to be on the radio. _Perfect_. He was _perfect_, and he was as warm and present and real as Cecil was cool and distant and otherworldly; Cecil's laugh could send shivers of tension up his spine, but Carlos's made things relax and uncurl in him instead. He started spending time with him because he _wanted to_ and less so that he could make sure he was there when he inevitably needed saving. They ended up talking about childhoods, about friends, about hobbies beyond their jobs and places outside of Night Vale. Earl hadn't been to any, but he had read about them and he could listen to Carlos talk about them all night, the cadence of his voice pleasant enough, even if he would never have described it as anything remotely approaching "caramel".

Cecil was allowed a little bit of dramatic license, of course, since he was in love but Earl denied himself that, forced himself to be realistic and call things as he saw them. He wasn't in love, after all, not with _Carlos_ anyway. He wasn't allowed to be in love with Carlos. It sat more and more bitter in his heart every day, the truth of it like the twist of a dagger every time he smiled that perfect smile and Earl felt his own lips curl up in response.

He threw himself, instead, into making sure they got together. He encouraged Carlos to call Cecil to get the word out about things. He talked about him in as charming a way as possible, without seeming interested. Whenever Carlos was confused or, more often, _horrified_ by something Cecil had said on the radio, either about Carlos himself, or about Science in general, he was there to explain what Night Vale was like, what Cecil was like. He played the matchmaker every way he knew how, and he was pretty sure it was working, Carlos starting to laugh warmly and shake his head when talking about Cecil, now, instead of seeming almost frightened by his enthusiasm. Earl basked in all of that fondness, his own little prize for a job well done, even though he knew none of it was for him. Friends. He couldn't possibly ask for two better friends, one a fond memory from childhood that provided a constant for him in a rapidly changing and frightening world and one a new presence in his life, interesting and interested, someone who he could connect with even without a shared past, who was just different enough to be remarkable and just similar enough, in many ways, that he could relate. He couldn't ask for _more_than that, than seeing them happy and in love, could he? It would be all right. He would be all right. For them. With them.

Apparently, he couldn't even ask for that.

Saying good-bye to Cecil was surprisingly easy. There was only one thing he wanted to make sure Cecil knew in case he didn't come back from the Eternal Scout ceremony, only one regret he had ever had concerning his childhood best friend, and it was easy enough to slip it in at the end of the interview. He didn't know if it would make it on the air. He didn't care if it did anymore. He didn't care about a lot of things anymore. He would be mortified if he survived, but if he didn't, _we could have had something_ wasn't a bad eulogy, after all. It was the story of his life.

Carlos, though, Carlos was more difficult. He hadn't had an entire lifetime to work out what he wanted to say to Carlos in his head. It didn't help that when he walked into the lab, Carlos was thankfully the only one in there but also very deeply involved in some kind of Science Thing, lab goggles on his head and dropper in one gloved hand. He put a drop of something on a slide and stuck it under a microscope and didn't even look up when Earl came in, just grunted some kind of non-committal, distracted greeting at him, leaning into the microscope and taking notes on whatever he was seeing, below. Earl felt a flash of something that was half irritation, half heartbreak, because Carlos had _always_been happy to pay attention to him and he was only just realizing that it was actually mostly when _Carlos_ wanted to pay attention, not when Earl wanted him to. Of course. _Of course_. The story of his life.

But Carlos wasn't native to Night Vale, he reminded himself, and if he didn't know about Librarians, or Dot Day, or re-education, maybe he didn't know about the Boy Scouts, either, and what it meant to say that no one had ever been an Eternal Scout before, the uncertainty and terror that might bring.

"Carlos," he managed, croaked, the words half stuck in his throat and there was a warm surge of something that might have been happiness and might have been tears when Carlos looked up out of the Science immediately, a little frown appearing on his lovely face. He tilted his head to the side quizzically,

"Earl? Is there something wrong?" Earl knew he'd gotten his earlier assumption correct, because Carlos didn't say it like someone who knew there was something wrong and was fishing for what. It was a genuine question, said with a hint of the kind of worry you get before you know if you should be worried or not. Earl suddenly wanted to be anywhere but here. If there was something worse than being ignored, he suddenly found, it was being paid attention to.

"It's nothing. I just. The Eternal Scout ceremony is in less than an hour. It's… two of my scouts are the ones being inducted and I'm both proud and terrified," that much was part of his prepared statement, falling rote off his tongue, but Carlos (Outsider Carlos) reacted differently from everyone else in town that he'd told about it,

"Terrified?" he set the dropper down and reached up, took off his safety goggles, which did completely unfair things to his beautiful hair, and looked more seriously at Earl, "Are you alright?"

"I'm…" no, no he wasn't alright, and he might now consider Carlos a friend, but he was still bitterly angry that someone who should have been something like a rival was the_only_ person in town to ask him that, "… confused," he finished, lamely. And he was. He was confused about a number of things. Carlos stripped off his gloves and stood, stretching all of the kinks out of his back and moving over towards him,

"All of the crazy bullshit you've saved me from, and you really think a Scout Ceremony is going to do you in?" Carlos raised his eyebrows in surprise and dismissal, still not quite understanding, "You'll be fine." _I won't be,_ Earl wanted to say, _the tablets under City Hall were very specific. I am going to my death and the only person in town that cares is someone who I want to hate with every fiber of my being and **can't**_. Something must have shifted in his face, because even Carlos, who was self-admittedly not that great with picking up subtle social cues, seemed to realize that this was more serious than he was previously giving it credit for being, that Earl was _genuinely_ scared and not just nervous about giving a speech or something.

"Hey…" Carlos reached out and put a hand on Earl's shoulder, warm, friendly, _there_, "Hey… you'll be _fine_. It'll be okay. You're one of the strongest people I know and I'm sure that you'll—mmrrph!" Earl didn't actually know why he kissed him, then, when he'd never given into the desire to before. It might have something with never having_admitted_ to himself he'd had the desire to before, but once his mouth was on his, he couldn't remember anymore why he'd waited. He was going to his death and maybe, just for once before it was all over, he was allowed to be totally selfish and self-serving about something, to have something he wanted for no other reason than he wanted it. It wouldn't matter in a few hours anyway.

Carlos's mouth was warm, temperature but also temperament, and tasted like lavender, and Earl deepened the kiss without thinking. He got his hands in that ridiculously perfect hair and tipped his body into Carlos's. Carlos kept making little surprised noises every time he shifted, but he had his arms around him, hesitant but not unwelcoming, pulling him _closer_ and Earl was going to be more embarrassed than he had ever been in his _life_ when he finally pulled back, but right now the tension unwound from him whipcrack fast and he _melted_ into Carlos's arms, a soft moan of _relief_ bubbling up out of him, wretched and wonderful, against Carlos's mouth. _Into_ Carlos's mouth, and he wasn't even actually sure if it was him who had started it or Carlos, but it was so unfair that even his _tongue_ was perfect, sliding against his in a way that managed to be passionately hot and_sweet_ at the same time, his hands having shifted up to cup against his cheeks.

Everything was so _sweet_; even as Earl could tell he was clinging too hard, probably uncomfortably so, Carlos was nothing but soothing, _protective_, even through the low, rumbling moan he voiced back into Earl's mouth when Earl shifted deeper into his arms. Earl had never, ever had anyone act like they wanted to take care of _him_, before— even when Cecil and he had been close, it had always been him taking care of the dreamy, excitable future radio host, not the other way around. Carlos kissed like he could somehow make everything bad in the world go away, if he could just kiss Earl long enough, thoroughly enough.

One kiss turned into two, three, more, each of them taking turns dragging the other back into them when one of them started to pull away. Time melted and pulled around them like taffy and Earl could feel his bones doing the same, the tension he had been carrying, his fear, until he wasn't sure how long they had been kissing anymore, until he wasn't certain of anything in the world but Carlos's mouth on his, the steady beat of his heart and the press of his hands, something that was not necessarily calm itself, but pulsed, breathed, calmed him. Carlos's hands soothed against his back when Earl stopped kissing him and clung to him instead, eyes screwed tight against having to witness and return to reality. He buried his head in Carlos's shoulder so he wouldn't have to see whatever was in his face, but whatever there was, Carlos said nothing, just slid his hands, warm (so warm) up and down his back, stroked through his hair, silent and solid and so very, very _there_. _Gods_ but he was going to be _so good_ for Cecil, excitable, passionate Cecil, everything that Earl couldn't ever have been and, for once, the thought didn't fill him with any bitterness or hurt, just a deep, deep love and an aching sense of melancholy, that he could never have something that beautiful.

Still, he had a job to do, and a very important one at that, and he was finding that his tension had, in fact, been soothed away, and he was left mostly just feeling _proud_ and at a strange kind of peace with himself, with the world around him, with his inevitable, approaching death. It wasn't a bad note to go out on, being kissed warm down to his toes and knowing that everything would be all right once he was gone, that everyone he truly cared for would be taken care of. It was more than most people got. And by the time he took back his own weight and backed off, he was flushed but composed and Carlos… Carlos was flushed too, beautifully so, his eyes still a sort of shock-wide, but concerned as well, confused, even as his hands were reluctant to let Earl go.

"Earl, you—" Earl laid fingers over his mouth, because there wasn't any _time_, now that it was back to moving normally, and he had an appointment to keep,

"If I don't come back…"_when I don't come back…_ he pushed completely away, made himself take a full step backwards before he lost the will to go, "If I don't come back, take care of Cecil for me. I know you think he's really weird, but I have never seen him love someone like he loves you," he finally, _finally_, allowed a little bit of his past to show in his voice, where Cecil was concerned, because Carlos needed to know how serious he was, "Never… Give him a chance at least, okay, and try not to get yourself killed. "

"I understand. I will, uh, I won't, but what about…" Carlos was talking to the air, "… you?"

Carlos looked around the empty lab, confused. He'd lied, when he said he understood. He didn't understand anything. He didn't understand anything _at all_.

And that night, when he listened to a repeat of Cecil's show, he understood too well, and too late.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Still spoilers for Eternal Scouts, spoilers for One Year Later.

* * *

Carlos looked around the empty lab, confused. He'd lied, when he said he understood. He didn't understand anything. He didn't understand anything _at all_.

It wasn't that he thought Cecil was weird, he wanted to explain to Earl. He _did_ think Cecil was weird. He thought _everything_ here was weird. Everything here _was_ weird; it wasn't an opinion- it was an Empirical fact. That wasn't it, though. It was that he had always just assumed, despite all of Earl's insistence to the contrary, that Cecil was just making up a good story for his listeners, like any good radio host. The tall, handsome outsider, come to town for reasons unknown and better left unasked about seemed like the kind of thing people in this place would eat up. Maybe Cecil even had a bit of a crush; if anyone could nurse a schoolboy crush as a fully functional, professional adult it was Cecil, after all. But people didn't just _fall in love_ like that. Everything was just him being giddy and turning it into a good story. It wasn't like Cecil had _feelings_ for him, did he?

But then, he hadn't thought that Earl had had any kind of feelings for him, either. And he definitely did have feelings, though they might well have been ambiguous or otherwise ill thought out or defined. Carlos didn't possess any sort of true grasp on interpersonal behavior, but he was pretty sure that that wasn't just an "I don't want to die without having kissed someone and you are standing here" sort of a kiss. Earl kissed him more like he had wanted to for a while and that the threat of death had caused either caution or possibly guilt to be thrown to the wind. Whether Earl was fully aware of it or not, that kiss had been something he had wanted for awhile and that left Carlos in doubt about everything he potentially knew about _Cecil_ and where he stood with him, because he hadn't even noticed Earl even really _liked_ him, much less would want to kiss him and he had, for the past few weeks, actually been _looking_ for signs of that, hoping for them just a bit, in fact. Earl had been so kind, and helpful and was so interesting to talk to… he might have been nursing a bit of a crush of his own on the Scoutmaster.

And _God_ but that had been a hell of a good kiss, too. If he hadn't already been nursing a crush, he was now. It had been desperate and passionate and frightened, and feeling Earl genuinely soothed by his fumbling attempts to try to help had warmed him until he was surprised, in a place like Night Vale, that he wasn't literally glowing from it. He hadn't realized how much he'd needed something like that, how much he'd missed any kind of physical contact in the past year here in Night Vale, denied even the hugs of his friends or his family, much less the touch of a lover. He'd never gone this long without at least platonic affection, though he could still count on one hand the number of sexual partners he'd managed to have between school and work and Science. More so than that, he'd always been a sucker for being _needed_, possibly more than any single other thing in his life. No one had ever needed him in a romantic or sexual way before, he'd never known he could actually soothe someone, calm them with a touch or a kiss or even just his presence.

That it was Earl, a man who was boyishly attractive, lean and athletic and, above all else, intensely _capable_, intelligent, interesting, just sweetened things until they were almost unbearable. Having someone who he admired for his courage and his competence (and _patience_) like Earl _need_ him for something, to help them, to provide something, and then to have it be something _other_ than scientific data, other than his mind, something physical and visceral… he honestly didn't know _what_ it made him feel, because he had never felt it before. No one had ever needed that before, not from him. Theories, perhaps, or logic, assistance with esoteric things, but he had never had someone just fold themselves in against his chest and _cling_ to him, not even his younger siblings, much less a potential lover.

And now, of course, he couldn't help but wonder if he could have had that all along. He'd heard the barely suppressed longing in Earl's voice, lingering over a few subjects during their interviews or just their rambling discussions. The melancholy seemed to center around a certain radio presenter, unsurprisingly, but also love and youthful happiness. Earl clearly missed his younger years and while he took pride in his job at almost every opportunity, didn't seem to find adult life beyond that to be very appealing or interesting. Was that just a sort of nostalgia? He had always presumed it was something with Cecil, and when he eventually heard what Earl's final words to Cecil were, they did not surprise him. But now, in light of the kiss, Carlos wondered how much of what Earl had been saying was some kind of subconscious cry for recognition, for _Carlos_ to notice what Cecil wasn't, even if Earl would never let himself admit it, for love of his best friend and his best friend's crush on Carlos.

Carlos didn't understand people. He could collect observational, typically third party, data, compile it, turn over the facts in his head, but that didn't mean he knew what they_meant_. He was bad at hypotheses when they had to do with uncontrolled variables like the human brain and emotions. Why would Earl have been so adamant that Carlos pay more attention to Cecil or that Cecil really, truly loved him and that he should try returning that affection, if Earl had some kind of romantic feelings not just for Cecil, but for_Carlos_ as well. Why would he even be _interested_ in Carlos? Earl had done nothing but save him and tell him things that any child in Night Vale should have already known. Or was he reading the entirely wrong set of underpinnings in the things Earl had done? Could Earl have simply kissed him as some form of either revenge against Cecil, or a replacement, whereby he could have from Carlos, the object of Cecil's affections, what he couldn't have from Cecil?

Thinking about it made his head hurt. He probably had more chance of figuring out what was going on with all the clocks in Night Vale than to ever understand even people_outside_ of Night Vale, much less inside of it. He was pretty sure his earlier scenarios were melodramatic in the extreme, but then, a lot of human interaction seemed melodramatic and odd to him, so he couldn't be sure.

The only way to figure it out would be to make more observations about Earl, which he was now _very much_ hoping he would get a chance to do. Maybe he could make those observations over coffee. Or dinner. Or, judging by that kiss, possibly _breakfast_.

Or perhaps the answer was D – None of the Above.

Earl didn't come back and the point was moot. Earl was dragged away, suddenly, by strange forces in the guise of hollow-eyed children, and Carlos began to understand that there were entirely new ways that this town could be terrifying and he started to understand, a little, why Earl was so adamant about him seeing Cecil, why you might want to take your happiness in hand as quickly as possible once you first saw it. He made a vow that he would talk more to Cecil, and he did, and he tried to put Earl and the kiss and everything else out of his mind. Earl's last wish had been for him to give Cecil a chance, and it wasn't as though he didn't _like_ him, or that he couldn't see or feel any kind of chemistry between them. There definitely was. He had been hopelessly tongue-tied or rambling every time he had ever tried to talk to Cecil, heat rising to his cheeks no matter how much he tried to tell himself he wasn't affected. It was just that he wasn't _sure_. He didn't come here for a relationship, after all. He had work to do and he wasn't good boyfriend material for someone like Cecil anyway, or possibly for _anyone_. But he'd promised Earl, so he would invite him to some coffee and try to slowly, carefully, get to know him better, and then he promptly forgot to invite him to coffee and forgot even that he had said yes to meeting him when Cecil said he had something to give him.

He forgot all of it, until he was being lifted out of the miniature city under lane 5. He forgot all of it until Earl wasn't there to save him and, lying on the ground, bleeding and disoriented, he realized how _often_ Earl had saved him. He wondered several things then—how much of that was originally Earl doing it for Cecil's sake, and when it switched over to doing it for Carlos's sake, and whether Earl _knew_ that he didn't understand what Earl had given him, when he told him not to get himself killed.

It didn't make him any more sure about anything. Not Cecil, and definitely not Night Vale, but it made him realize if he waited until he was sure, what might happen before then? Who was to say he wouldn't get dragged off by hollow-eyed children or killed by miniature people or have a large animal fall out of the sky from a potentially malevolent member of the school board. What was to say _Cecil_ wouldn't. Carlos knew there was something special about his role in the town, a mystery that he hadn't had time to explore, but surely whatever that connection was, it didn't leave him invulnerable. Laying there, in a small puddle of his own blood and listening to the sounds of the consequences, once again deferred to someone other than himself, he understood, for the first time, the consequences of _waiting_. Earl, after all, had seemed sure, decisive, when he'd talked to Cecil, when he'd kissed him and he had spent nearly a year as Carlos's friend and who knows how many as Cecil's. How long would Carlos need to wait before he _was_ sure. And would he even be given that time?

He knew it was a selfish, horrible thought, but he didn't want to end up like Earl.

So even though his fingers still shook and felt a little numb, even though he had never been less sure of anything in his life, he called Cecil as soon as he was able to. A man was dead because of him, because of his stupidity and his inability to think of one set of consequences prior to doing a damn fool thing and another had died after protecting him from disaster after disaster. He could do nothing for the former, but the latter was a different story and that it involved bringing happiness to a third by _not_ considering the consequences anymore made it, perhaps, a fitting send off for the first.

Seeing Cecil light up (thankfully metaphorically) when he said he just wanted to see him, made something settle deep down inside him, something that hadn't felt settled in a long time, but that Earl had pried up completely only a few weeks before.

Sometimes, he mused, partially outloud, Cecil curled warm against his side like he'd been meant to be there all along, things seemed so strange, or malevolent, and then you found out that, underneath, they were something else altogether. Cecil said he understood but, for once, Carlos was fairly sure he didn't, not fully. Carlos was not the kind of man to fall in love instantly. Carlos wasn't even _sure_ he was in love now. He wondered if he would be, eventually, if this was fair to Cecil—to be sitting on the back of his car, watching the stars and wondering if Earl was out there somewhere, sometime, someplace, looking at the same ones. He felt like these moments were stolen, but he wasn't sure who he was stealing them _from_.

He still wasn't entirely sure that he wasn't a replacement. He wasn't sure Cecil wasn't. He wasn't sure he wouldn't have been a replacement for Earl, if he had stayed and he'd gotten to kiss him again. What he _was_ sure of, however, was that he was tired of being alone, that Cecil was warm against his side and that, when he put a hand on his knee, experimentally, and Cecil leaned into the living warmth of him and put his head on his shoulder, it felt so _right_ that he never wanted to move again.

That was something. That meant something. _That_ was something that he could understand.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: This is just a little segue chapter. I thought originally it would be part of the next chapter, but it decided it needed to be it's own thing.

**This chapter contains spoilers for "Condos".**

* * *

"No, not a condo."

"Cecil… is that…?" a neck turns. Somewhere, perhaps some_when_ else, a radio presenter is saying that the man who was totally his boyfriend said something else. Here, a radio presenter is standing, arms full of said boyfriend, staring at one of the condos.

Inside the condo, there is a third man.

He is just floating there, as mute as the children who took him away. One of the two men outside the condo makes a noise of distress. One of them struggles down out of the other's arms, takes a knee on the ground, gritting his teeth. Mountains and numbers and dark planets lit by no sun float through their minds, but so too does a memory of five words, the memory of a series of desperate kisses, the memories, similar but not shared, of late night conversations and cold pizza and laughter.

They race each other to the condo, in a panic, but both stop, cold, just outside it. Around them is the feel a certain type of sand makes under your feet. Around them, the condos are leaving Night Vale, slowly, almost imperceptibly. The one the man is inside is slowly, slowly coming to rest on the ground.

"… I… I can't," one of the men not inside the condo says, voice shaking, "I can't _again_."

"I think," says the other, eyes judging the distance, calculating the angles, "I think if you hold onto my hand, I might still be able to reach him…"

"And what if you don't want to come out?" another neck turns, and lips brush the back of a set of knuckles,

"It's a statistically acceptable risk. After all, I've just been reminded of what I have to return to," two sets of lips curve into smiles and then meet, briefly.

Heroics have, historically, not gone well for one of the men, but then, both of the other two seem to be prone to making it out of their own disasters relatively unscathed, and he's got his hands in one each of theirs, so…

There is no time, then, to consider an entirely different set of potential consequences. There is no time, then, to do anything but reach, and grasp.

And pull.


End file.
